Buy this and never, ever have a conversation about anything ever again

I can kind of understand why the doofus kid pops in to interrupt a pretty stupid argument between two total strangers rather inexplicably watching a PG-13-rated movie on a huge screen at an airport.  I mean, the two guys here are being pretty obnoxious and like I said it's a stupid argument- who gives a flying damn which lousy X-Men movie it is?  Aren't they all interchangeable anyway?

Still, I can't help wondering why this kid, who looks like he's about eight years old, has this expensive tricked-out phone.  And where the hell are his parents?  And who is the other kid- his sister?  Or another total stranger who also wasn't taught not to talk to people you don't know and who also doesn't have parents?

And when was it decided that technology should be geared toward nipping all questions and arguments and other conversations in the bud as rapidly as possible?  No one need have a discussion concerning any matter of trivia or history or music or movies or ANYTHING because hey, let's just ask our freaking know it all phones.  So much for conversation starters- these phones are conversation MURDERERS.  Don't argue.  Don't debate.  Just Get The Answer and go back to being socially isolated nitwits with fancy phones.  Ugh.

This commercial struck a particular nerve with me because it reminded me of one of the sweetest experiences of my life.  Since this is my blog, I'll share:  In 1984, I was taking Amtrak back to Vermont from college for Christmas vacation.  A very pretty girl sat down next to me and asked if she could listen to my Walkman, since her batteries were dead.  She listened to my music and we struck up a conversation which lasted about six hours (eventually the batteries on my Walkman went dead, too.)  We didn't have any Smartphones (or phones at all) or Tablets anything else to create bubbles around each other, so we talked and talked.  She fell asleep for a while on my shoulder, which was also really nice.

When the train approached my stop in Montpelier we exchanged addresses (she was a citizen of Columbia living in Canada) and said goodbye.  We wrote for years but I never saw her again, but I'll never forget that train ride- and I'm convinced that the meeting and conversation would not have happened today, as one or both of us would have been in our electronic cocoons, with no need to seek companionship outside our own little digitial worlds.

Anyway....

Someone explain to me why this technology is necessary, or even a welcome luxury.  Someone explain to me why anyone would run out and buy this because it features an app which identifies the film you are watching so you can more quickly stop talking to a fellow humanoid life form.  On second thought, I take it back- don't try to explain any of this to me.  It's just too damned depressing.

Almost as much fun as throwing your money down a storm drain

1.  It must be a real joy to be in the next cubicle from this woman, don't you think?  It takes her roughly half an hour to get her freaking phone out of her freaking bag.

2.  I've never understood what exactly is "fun" about buying lottery tickets.  Is it the approximately 8 seconds it takes to scratch off that silver stuff to find out you spent $2-$20 on a piece of cardboard?  Why is that fun, exactly?

3.  I bet the laughing ball thing is an App, and if it's not, the YouTube glue-sniffers are begging for it to become one.  I hate this century so very much.

American Home Shield- Because Capitalism isn't F--ng poor people over enough already

"If you don't know what a Home Protection Plan is, you are definitely the kind of gullible sucker we want to talk to."

That's not exactly what the guy in this ad says, but it IS exactly what he means.

I hate these scumbags like poison- people who prey on the most financially vulnerable among us deserve their own little ring of hell.  I"m talking to you, Aaron's- and Rent A Center, and American Home Shield.

I hear these commercials on XM all the time- "you are just one broken refrigerator away from financial disaster.  So you NEED American Home Shield, insurance for your appliances...." but listen carefully to what these lower-than-dirt putrid maggots say in their smooth little pitches- "all COVERED repairs will be paid for when you purchase protection with American Home Shield."

In other words, "All Covered Repairs Will Be Covered."  Oh, and what are "Covered Repairs?"  Simply the repairs American Home Shield chooses to pay for, IF ANY.

And it gets even worse- when you want to file a claim, you have to pay a "service fee" (the radio ad says "of course, a service fee is required for each filed claim"- yes, of COURSE, because everyone knows that when you purchase any kind of insurance and want to actually USE it  you have to pay a filing fee...um....right?)

Who falls for crap like this?  People with no money.  People who live in constant fear that the old refrigerator, washer and dryer, etc. they picked up at the swap meet or second-hand store will fail and they'll be left in the lurch, unable to provide a vital service for their family.  So they shell out several hundred dollars they really don't have for non-coverage, pay a non-refundable  fee they can't afford when it comes time to file a claim,  and get in return a stream of excuses to explain why this particular problem isn't covered, sorry, no refunds.

As if poor people don't have enough problems, there's no end to vulture companies like American Home Shield ready to pick their pockets.  Why is this even legal? Oh yeah- capitalism.  Free Enterprise.  Freedom.  All that crap.

(Here are some reviews from actual American Home Shield customers concerning this business from my favorite website, RipoffReport.com- it seems that when this company DOES honor claims, it employs bottom-feeder incompetents to do crap work to save itself money- what a surprise....490 complaints, most of them very recent, and in a 30-minute survey of the complaints, I have yet to find a single rebuttal from the company or a satisfied customer....)

- http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/American%20Home%20Shield

The Great (but Fading) Cialis-Viagra Mirage

When Viagra, Cialis etc. first hit the market, sales instantly skyrocketed.  Here was a "Magic Pill" and suddenly a problem that nobody realized was endemic was being "solved" by Big Pharma.  Doctors, Psychologists and the media speculated that "ED" was just "one of those things people didn't talk about" and was a much, much larger issue than anyone had imagined, based on the sale of these awesome new drugs.

Then something funny started to happen.  Sales of Viagra and Cialis leveled off, and began to decline.  More and more men failed to bring their prescriptions in for refills.  What was up (no really really bad pun intended?)

Here's the speculation, which I suspect is one hundred percent accurate:  When Viagra and Cialis were introduced, they were marketed as drugs which made Life After Fifty Worth Living.  Their actual medical purpose was blurred in favor of a fantasy- it wasn't really about having sex.  It was the Purple Pill of Youth.  At some point, the men taking this stuff realize that it doesn't actually turn them back into supercharged 18-year old sexual monsters, and the appeal drops off pretty dramatically. (I suspect that meds for "Low T" are currently popular for the same reason, and will soon suffer the same fate.)  A lot of men bought in to this medications not because they have a physical "problem in the bedroom" (to use the twee language) but because they thought it would actually make them look at their sexual partners differently.  When that didn't happen (even when she wore her old college sweater, or rode a bicycle, or insisted on getting her photo taken in a booth or any of the other things that according to the ads are supposed to stimulate sexual urges) they started to wonder "why am I shelling out big bucks for this snake oil?"

Simply put:  Cialis and Viagra are designed to help people who already want to have sex have sex.  But millions of men bought them thinking that they were designed to help people who don't want to have sex, have sex.   When they still didn't feel any strong physical attraction for the aging woman they'd been with for twenty years, they became disappointed and felt cheated- and tossed the empty pill container in the trash.

Thing is, I bet ED is an actual medical condition and medications designed to alleviate it are a godsend to actual victims.  But the makers of these drugs didn't become filthy rich selling them to 40 million ED patients, sorry.  They got rich selling the idea that taking a purple pill would make men see past the wrinkles and sags and envision  the hot little honey they fell in lust with back in the 80s.  Which is kind of dumb when you think about it, considering that right down the street there are stores with unlimited supplies of whisky, all available without a prescription. 

"And don't even get me started on the cost of a decent gardener these days!"

I'm really trying to work up some sympathy for a woman who whines about her cable/phone bill as she takes a freaking hike through her spotless, gleaming-white, cavernous suburban mansion equipped with all the trendy furniture, finest appliances and at least one enormous flat-screen television in each room.  Really I am.

Actually I just wish she would just shut her pampered cake hole and stop trying to convince me that she is really concerned about the price of cable, telephone service, gasoline or anything else.  Next time get a representative from your f---ing cleaning crew to tell us about how Comcast saves money.  Because seriously- from you?  I'm not buying that you've looked at the price tag of anything for at least the past five years, so take your "hey I'm just like you" act and roll it off a cliff in your Lexus SUV, ok?

To Xfinity and beyond? Count me out.

Yesterday, you went into an irritated, impatient snit because you couldn't watch Exactly What You Want Right F--ng Now.  Maybe you turned the TV off and actually talked to your family, played a board game, whatever.  But it all sucked and amounted to a wasted evening, because No TV.

Today, you've got Xfinity so you never have to suffer through another evening like that ever, ever again.  Now you can watch a tv show while DVRing everything being played everywhere, so the phrase "there's nothing on tv, let's read or play a board game or take a walk or just talk" will never, ever be heard in your home because in a month you'll have 3000 hours of --um--- "entertainment"- on that DVR.  Problem solved.  Thank God.

You people are all f--ing zombie losers and when you die, it will be very, very hard to tell.

One more vacation.....

Every summer for the past 17 years, my family has rented a cottage at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire for a week.  Before that I would go for 2-3 day visits to this very nice, middle-class ocean resort.  I kind of like this video because it's from the summer of 1988, and that was the year I took my 7-year old nephew to Hampton and we stayed at a hotel which no longer exists, right on Ocean Boulevard on the boardwalk.

I spend my days at Hampton taking long walks along the beach, talking to fishermen in the early mornings and evenings, watching the whale watch boats head out just after dawn (went on a whale watch about ten years ago, lots of fun....)  At night I play old video games (I wore out "Time Pilot," neither of the big arcades have one anymore, pretty much switched to Qbert after that) and get ice cream cones and listen to the live music at the Shell Stage.  And walk along the beach some more, especially if we are treated to low tides during the right time of the evening.

Anyway, all this is just to explain why I won't be posting again till next Saturday- I'll have my phone at the beach but that's just for emergencies, I'll have my tablet but that's just to check my email in the evenings.  When I get back it's time to start thinking about school again and the non-summer routine, but before then, I've got a week of bloviating (a really underused term) ahead of me, with very little television- which means, very little exposure to crappy commercials.  Looking forward to it.

Check out the archives while I'm gone!  'Bye for now!